Miss Ann Thrope

So England went through the entire 90 minutes without a shot on goal (apart from the penalty) against a dogged defence of well organised yellow shirted terriers. Augurs well for the next match???

Colombia painfully lacked James' leadership on the pitch and - hard to imagine I know - seemed kind of hypnotised by the idea of playing England. I think that's why they descended into the noxious niggling tactics that were so frustrating for the first hour before they finally started to play and show some of the capability that was on display when they so elegantly shredded Poland. Of course it was worse when the obviously immature England lads responded in kind, just without the finesse. I was glad that it was Henderson who missed in the shootout as he deserved to be the scapegoat, if there was to be one, after his earlier petulant histrionics. By the way, why didn't Vardy take a pen? I was sure he'd be up right after Kane.

What yesterday's games suggest to me is that England-Sweden will be painful. Sweden, brilliantly aware of their shortcomings, will once more sit deep and defend robustly ceding possession to an England team without even a bare smidgen of creativity in midfield. Better hope for lots of corners. And Sweden on the break is as terrifying a prospect as, well, England on the break. God that will be 90 (or, almost certainly, 120+) minutes of my life that I will never get back.

Really, that side of the draw should be for the plate or something. The four best teams left are on the other side. It physically pains me to think that one of Uruguay or France will be out in a few days and one of England or Sweden will be through!!!

scrubbedexpat141

Morning mate.

Good game though.

Most of my money was on the England game, came out very well actually.

You've posted what I was thinking. Ref was solid, Colombians should **** off back to their third world, police-less state and beat each other up there instead of trying to bully our boys.

It's coming home.

DXBtoDOH

Was interesting watching Sweden vs Switzerland and then Engerland versus Colombia afterwards. The former was a very cleanly played game, elegant even. The latter was rough and tumble and aggressive and you suspected that if the spectators and refs weren't there blood might have been shed.

I will be watching come Saturday to see how differently Engerland performs against Sweden.

Millhouse

They will be gents. We were drawn into that mess and it's not our standard style of play.

Colombia were disgraceful and I thought the ref. was bit weak during the first half, but someone must have shown him the VAR while he was having his root beer - the quick flurry of yellow cards in the second half certainly calmed the game. Was a hard game to watch and that 92min screw up was a nail biter. Obviously I was with the rest of England thinking we were out when it boiled down to the penos. I went from singing "we're going home" to "it's coming home"

Sweden will go a good fair game, played by the rules.

scrubbedexpat141

Don't watch it.

Amen brother Millhouse. Falcao is a disgrace and a fraud.

Can't win pretty all the time, can't look good all the time. In fact, we rarely look good but if we can win the world cup like this, I'll take it every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Bahtatboy

I was close. It was close. 50+ gottles of geer between 3 of us. Head hurts.

scrubbedexpat141

I'm all sorts of sideways today. Nothing at work is getting done. Nothing. Not one bit of work to spoil this great feeling.

Miss Ann Thrope

Ah, seduced by the Scandinavian stereotypes... Sweden can't succeed at the game they play without being practiced in the dark arts. What they lack in theatricality they make up for in efficiency and are thus much more effective. You just can't consistently win games with less than 30% possession, and without any particularly gifted or creative players upfield, if you don't have an extensive box of tricks to draw on. And they won't be giving away stupid penalties like Colombia.

Speaking of which, I've seen an interesting description of Harry Kane's wrestling move in the box - you know the one for which Tunisia were not penalised but Colombia were. The basic premise is that Kane draws the defender into "mounting" him, so to speak by grabbing his arm, turning and backing into him. I haven't seen the incidents in slo-mo since I read that but it is striking that it seemed to be a very similar motion with Kane in the box with two different Tunisian defenders and Sanchez last night. It might also explain some of Sanchez's overdone outrage at the penalty award - he does play in England remember - West Brom if i recall?

Miss Ann Thrope

I wouldn't miss it for the world. Car crash TV.

Dubaiexile

Not as good as the World Cup Basketball;

https://www.bbc.com/sport/basketball/44688264

scrubbedexpat141

I expect this level of bitterness from the Scots (my Father included, despite how pleasant he's being at the moment), but aren't you Irish?

I mean, this is desperate.

weasel decentral

Come on misery guts it's not that bad.

reddiva

It is an occuring theme all over social media. Scots, Irish, (haven't seen many Welsh posters) being very bitter
If we were knocked out and if they were in i would root for Scotland as OH is from there.

nonthaburi

11 players coming from a country riddled with drugs and violence.......

mangaed to beat Columbia.

scrubbedexpat141

Being half Scottish I always want them to do well, just not against England. Dad would be happy if England lost, but he's happy that I'm happy at the moment. Its sweet really, I can tell the blue blood in him just wants England out and to be done.

When the world cup grows to 48 teams so many of these smaller nations will make it and think they're good enough. It'll be really cute.

Until then, unless we win it, we'll have idiots slinging shit.
If we do win it, they'll say we didn't deserve it and all that guff.

What to do?